For every thing in the real world, there is a “perfect” image somewhere in the world of Forms. A perfect cat, a perfect tree, a perfect circle. (more...)

A fallacy in Critical Thinking is an error in argumentation that makes an argument invalid. (more...)

When is it right to remove colonial statues? When should we rewrite old books that are not politically correct any more? (more...)

The Presocratic philosophers were a group of thinkers who lived in ancient Greece before the time of Socrates. They were interested in understanding the natural world and the underlying principles that govern it. (more...)

Humans are constitutively incapable of virtuous forms of life. Posthumans, of course, can aspire to much more. (more...)

Ethics and the law are not the same and it can indeed be morally right, and even indicated, to break the law in certain situations. (more...)

Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game is a grand vision of a formal system that describes the hidden harmony of the universe. (more...)

In 1935, a bad trip triggered Jean-Paul Sartre’s deep-rooted fear of sea creatures. Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by crabs and lobsters. (more...)

The mind-body problem concerns the relationship between the mind and the body (or the brain). Two major philosophical views on this problem are monism and dualism. (more...)

Catherine Greene is a philosopher and writer. In this interview, we discuss her new book “The Red Hairband” (more...)

Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game contains multiple references to Chinese philosophy and religion. We unpack Hesse’s orientalist utopia. (more...)

The philosophy of religion is a wide and varied field of study that is different from both theology and the history of religions. It touches metaphysics, epistemology and many other areas of philosophy. (more...)

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was ambivalent towards philosophy. In just the same way that philosophy purports to explain the world, so too does psychoanalysis. (more...)

At the centre of Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game is a grand vision of life in Castalia, a province of scholars. (more...)

Here are a philosophy lecturer’s 5 tips on how to self-study philosophy as an adult learner. (more...)

Hermann Hesse’s ‘The Glass Bead Game’ may be his greatest novel. It combines a theory of history and education with Zen, and meditations on friendship and duty. (more...)

Given that climate change is, quite literally, an existential problem, it’s strange that we’re not all rushing to solve it. (more...)

In this series of posts, BVE Hyde presents a short but complete history of Japanese thought. This second part focuses on Confucianism. (more...)

Joseph Harris (2022). Misanthropy in the Age of Reason: Hating Humanity from Shakespeare to Schiller. Oxford University Press. 304 pages. Hardcover: 73. (more...)

This is about humour. I shall not make any clear distinction between humour in general and jokes, only to say that jokes are archly and tightly structured set pieces and a subgroup within humour. (more...)

A Dialogue between Socrates and ChatGPT on Intelligence. (more...)